WE ARE NOT SUBJECTS ... AND OTHER OBSERVATIONS ABOUT OBAMACARE:

Laura Hollis is an attorney and teaches entrepreneurship and business law at the University of Notre Dame. She resides in Indiana with her husband and two children.

A University of Notre Dame graduate, and after an illustrious career at a couple of other Midwestern universities, Laura Hollis returned to her alma mater to teach entrepreneurship and business law. She also writes an occasional column. This is one of her latest, about the Affordable Care Act, which has gone viral via the Internet. Her thoughts are challenging, regardless of one's political persuasion.

The unveiling of the dictatorial debacle that is Obamacare absolutely flabbergasts me. It is stunning on so many levels, but the most shocking aspect of it for me is watching millions of free Americans stand idly by while this man, his minions in Congress and his cheerleaders in the press systematically dismantle our Constitution, steal our money, and crush our freedoms.

The President, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid (with no small help from Justice John Roberts) take away our health care, and we allow it. They take away our insurance, and we allow it. They take away our doctors, and we allow it. They charge us thousands of dollars more a year, and we allow it. They make legal products illegal, and we allow it. They cripple our businesses, and we allow it. They announce by fiat that we must ignore our most deeply held beliefs – and we allow it.

Where is your spine, America?

Yes, I know people are complaining. I read the news on the internet. I read blogs. I have a Twitter feed. So what? People in the Soviet Union complained. People in Cuba complain. People in China complain (quietly). Complaining isn't the same thing as doing anything about it. In fact, much of the complaining that we hear sounds like resignation: Wow. This sucks. Oh well, this is the way things are. Too bad.

Perhaps you need reminding of a few important facts. Here goes:

1. The President is not a king. Barack Obama does not behave like a President, an elected official, someone who realizes that he works for us. He behaves like a king, a dictator – someone who believes that his own pronouncements have the force of law, and who thinks he can dispense with the law's enforcement when he deigns to do so. And those of us who object? How dare we? Racists!

And while he moves steadily "forward" with his plans to "fundamentally transform" the greatest country in human history, he distracts people with cheap, meaningless trivialities, like "free birth control pills"! (In fact, let's face it: this administration's odd obsession with sex in general -- Birth control! Abortion! Sterilization! Gay guys who play basketball! -- is just plain weird. Since when did the leader of the free world care so much about how people have sex, who they have it with, and what meds they use when they have it? Does he have nothing more important to concern himself with?)

2. It isn't just a failed software program; it is a failed philosophy. People are marveling that Healthcare.gov was such a spectacular failure. Well, if one is only interested in it as a product launch, I've explained some of the reasons for that here. But the larger point is that it isn't a software failure, or even a product failure; it is a philosophy failure.

I have said this before: Obama is not a centrist; he is a central planner. And this – all of it: the disastrous computer program, the hundreds of millions of dollars wasted, the lies, the manipulation of public opinion, the theft of the public's money and property, and freedom (read insurance, and premiums, and doctors) -- IS what central planning looks like.

The central premise of central planning is that a handful of wunderkinds with your best interests at heart (yeah, right) know better than you what's good for you. The failure of such a premise and the misery it causes have been clear from the dawn of humanity. Kings and congressmen, dictators and Dear Leaders, potentates, princes and presidents can all fall prey to the same imperial impulses: "we know what is good for 'the people'." And they are always wrong.

There is a reason that the only times communism has really been tried have been after wars, revolutions, or coups d'état. You have to have complete chaos for people to be willing to accept the garbage that centralized planning produces. Take the Soviet Union, for example. After two wars, famine, and the collapse of the Romanov dynasty, why wouldn't people wait in line for hours to buy size 10 shoes? Or settle for the gray matter that passed for meat in the grocery stores? But communism's watered-down cousin, socialism, isn't much better. Ask the Venezuelans who cannot get toilet paper. Toilet paper! ¡Viva la Revolución!

Contrary to what so many who believe in a "living Constitution" say, the Founding Fathers absolutely understood this. That is why the Constitution was set up to limit government power. (Memo to the President: the drafters of the Constitution deliberately didn't say "what government had to do on your behalf." They understood that that was the path to folly, fear, and famine.)

3. Obama is deceitful. Just as the collapse of the computer program should not surprise anyone, neither should we be shocked that the President lied about his healthcare plan. Have any of you been paying attention over the past few years? Obama has made no secret of his motivations or his methods. The philosophies which inspire him espouse deceit and other vicious tactics. (Don't take my word for it: read Saul Alinsky.) Obama infamously told reporter Richard Wolffe, "You know, I actually believe my own bullshit." He has refused to be forthcoming about his past (where are his academic records?). His own pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, told author Ed Klein, that Obama said to him, "You know what your problem is? You have to tell the truth." Did Obama lie when he said dozens of times, "If you like your plan, you can keep it. Period!"? Of course he did. That's what he does.

4. The news media is responsible. Had the media been doing their jobs, we would have known a lot of this much, much earlier. The press is charged with the sacred responsibility of protecting the people from the excesses of government. Our press has been complicit, incompetent, or corrupt. Had they vetted this man in 2008, as they would have another candidate, we would have known far more about him than we do, even now. Had they pressed for more details about Obamacare, Congress' feet would have been held to the fire. Had they done their jobs about Eric Holder, Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the IRS scandal, NSA spying -- or any of the other myriad betrayals of the public trust that this administration has committed, Obama would likely have lost his 2012 reelection campaign. (A fact that even The Washington Post has tacitly acknowledged. Well done, fellas!)

Instead, they turned a blind eye, even when they knew he was lying, abusing power, disregarding the limits of the Constitution. It was only when he began to spy on them, and when the lies were so blatant that the lowest of low-information voters could figure it out, that they realized they had to report on it. (Yet even in the face of blatant, deliberate and repeated lies, The New York Times has the audacity to tell us that the President "misspoke.") They have betrayed us, abandoned us, and deceived us.

5. Ted Cruz was right. So was Sarah Palin. The computer program is a disaster. The insurance exchanges are a disaster. What's left? The healthcare system itself. And this, of necessity, will be a disaster, too. Millions of people already have lost their individual insurance plans. In 2015, millions more will lose their employer-provided coverage (a fact which the Obama administration also knew, and admitted elsewhere). The exorbitant additional costs that Obamacare has foisted on unsuspecting Americans are all part of a plan of wealth confiscation and redistribution. That is bad enough. But it will not end there. When the numbers of people finally enter into the system and the corresponding demand for care vastly exceeds the cost projections (and they will, make no mistake), then the rationing will start. Not only choice at that point, but quality and care itself will go down the tubes. And then will come the decisions made by the Independent Payment Advisory Board about what care will be covered (read "paid for") and what will not.

That's just a death panel, put politely. In fact, progressives are already greasing the wheels for acceptance of that miserable reality as well. They're spreading the lie that it will be about the ability of the dying to refuse unwanted or unhelpful care. Don't fall for that one, either. It will be about the deaths that inevitably result from decisions made by people other than the patients, their families, and their physicians. (Perhaps it's helpful to think of their assurances this way: "If you like your end-of-life care, you can keep your end-of-life-care.")

6. We are not SUBJECTS. We have tolerated these incursions into our lives and livelihoods too long already. There is no end to the insatiable demand "progressives" have to remake us in their image. Today it is our insurance, our businesses, our doctors, our health care. Tomorrow some new crusade will be announced that enables them to take over other aspects of our formerly free lives.

I will say it again: WE ARE NOT SUBJECTS. Not only is the Tea Party right on the fiscal issues, but it appears that they are more relevant than ever. We fought a war once to prove we did not want to be the subjects of a king. The Boston Tea Party was just a taste of the larger conflict to come. If some people missed that lesson in history class, we can give them a refresher.

The 2014 elections are a good place to start. Call your representative, your senator, your candidate and tell them: "We are not subjects. You work for us. And if the word "REPEAL" isn't front and center in your campaign, we won't vote for you. Period!"

“consequently, that the ultimate right of the parties to the Constitution (i.e. the States), to judge whether the compact has been dangerously violated, must extend to violations by one delegated authority as well as by another--by the judiciary as well as by the executive, or the legislature.” Virginia Assembly Report 1800, James Madison.

If a nation can't define its boundaries, who comes in and on what terms, then it can't sustain itself culturally, financially, politically, morally and with security. It's not a nation.- G. Miller

"A lawyer is a person who knows the law" (Black’s Law Dictionary & other.) "It is said that all persons are presumed to know the law, meaning that ignorance of the Law excuses no one." (16 AM JUR 2D Sec. 178, 256.) Therefore all persons are presumed to be Lawyers.- Randy Due (illegally klidnapped by FBI and detained)

A federal government which does not derive its lawful and limited authority from the Constitution of the United States is by definition an occupation government and criminal regime. It’s authority is null and void and no one is bound by any rule of law to obey it. --Donald L. Cline

When Party Loyalty Demands You Support a Creep, It's Time to Walk Away-- Jim Geraghty

Everybody is still talking about the other baby, the royal baby. In fact, I saw that President Obama released a statement congratulating Prince William and Kate Middleton on the birth of their son. Then he said, “And whatever you do — hang on to that birth certificate.” - Jimmy Fallon

“I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”-- Barack Hussein Obama Soetoro Bounel Soebarkah

"And if you didn't know, the only difference between socialism and communism is an AK-47 aimed at your head."- Quang Nguyen

Solution to the problem in Egypt :

They want a new Muslim leader, Give them ours.

The administration’s attempt to intimidate Fox News and its employees will not succeed and their excuses will stand neither the test of law, the test of decency, nor the test of time. We will not allow a climate of press intimidation, unseen since the McCarthy era, to frighten any of us away from the truth.

-Roger Ailes, Fox News

When Satan is knocking at your door, simply say, "Jesus, could You please get that for me.

- unknown

"There are 27 amendments in the Constitution but only one says 'shall not be infringed,'" Steve Toth said. "The Second Amendment is the amendment that keeps the people free."

“The States then being the parties to the constitutional compact, and in their sovereign capacity, it follows of necessity, that there can be no tribunal above their authority, to decide in the last resort, whether the compact made by them be violated; and consequently that as the parties to it, they must themselves decide in the last resort, such questions as may be of sufficient magnitude to require their interposition.” – James Madison

"When you disarm the people, you commence to offend them and show that you distrust them either through cowardice or lack of confidence, and both of these opinions generate hatred." - Niccolo Machiavelli

“We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.” - "Obama", 2008

"A gun is like a parachute. If you need one, and don't have one, you'll probably never need one again."

This country does not need to have a conversation about how many bullets should go in a clip. It does need to have a conversation about how many parents should go in a family. It needs to talk about the ghettos of Obamerica and have a serious conversation about broken families and generational dependency. It needs to have a conversation about funneling new immigrants from broken parts of the world into areas already suffering from high levels of unemployment and street violence.- Daniel Greenfield

Gold is the money of kings, silver is the money of gentlemen, barter is the money of peasants and debt is the money of slaves.- Traditional

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ!

A federal government which does not derive its lawful and limited authority from the Constitution of the United States is by definition an occupation government and criminal regime. It’s authority is null and void and no one is bound by any rule of law to obey it. --Donald L. Cline

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty." -- Thomas Jefferson

“Disarmament of the populace is always the first step to depriving them of their civil rights and human rights…many African-Americans and women are actively assaulting the very document that first secured their own freedom... if you do not believe in the Bill of Rights, then you are not, at heart, an American.” – Mike Adams

Only in America could liberals talk about the greed of the rich at a $35,000 a plate campaign fund raising event.

We need to demythologize guns before the liberal attempt to create a totemic fear of them succeeds. If the gun control mentality promoting fear of guns themselves becomes our national mentality, we would turn the clock back to the days when a warrior class ruled over the people because only they had the confidence and expertise to deploy the means of defense and coercion. The gun control agenda will turn us into a people too timid to defend themselves from our would-be masters. – Alan Keyes

So now that there is a new tragedy the president wants to have a “national conversation on guns”. Here’s the thing. Until this national conversation is willing to entertain allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons, then it isn’t a conversation at all, it is a lecture. – Larry Correia'

During his 1956 presidential campaign, a woman called out to Adlai Stevenson: Senator, you have the vote of every thinking person! Stevenson called back: That's not enough, madam, we need a majority.

The economy is so bad, MSNBC had to lay off 300 Obama spokesmen. - Jay Leno

'Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

“What we’re watching here today is the equivalent of Woodward and Bernstein helping Nixon cover up Watergate,” he said. “The mainstream media is Woodward and Bernstein. Watergate is Benghazi. Except this time, Woodward and Bernstein are helping Nixon cover it up.”-- Russ Limbaugh

Lets see if I have this straight...Former President Bill Clinton ... who lied to his own wife... was convicted of perjury ... disbarred from practicing law in his home state... an admitted philanderer ... who "Never had sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky" ... Impeached by the US House of Representatives ... is giving testimonials for Barrack Obama's character and intentions!!!??? Is this a great country or what!?

"Thanking Obama for killing Bin Laden is like going into McDonalds and thanking Ronald McDonald for the hamburger. It's the guy cooking the burger that should get the credit, not the clown."

referring to 10-3-12 debate: "Obama made a lot of good points tonight. Unfortunately, most of them were for Romney." - Bill Maher, million dollar Obama donor

How can we stand up to someone that creates a 100 dollar Federal Reserve (FR) note for 2 cents and uses the face value of the note of 100 dollars to buy a 100 dollar U.S. Security where the government has to pay them 4% in interest at the end of the year? A yearly cost of 4 FR notes where it only cost the FR 2 cents to print.

This is the biggest Conspiracy you may ever encounter and this started sometime around 1913. Yes, your parents and their parents had so much of their time stolen from them at a cost of 2 pennies. And the National Debt is one big fraud. And this is not just in the United States but the whole world.- Steven Pattison

“Can you imagine a nation founded on the principles of God is being taken over by a party that despises God, denies God’s existence and wants to stab Israel in the back in order to support the Islamists who would kill the Jews and drive them out of the Middle East?”- - Michael Savage

"WE own this country, and when someone doesn't do the job "we have to let them go."- Clint Eastwood at RNC

“Capital must protect itself in every possible way, both by combination and legislation. Debts must be collected, mortgages foreclosed as rapidly as possible. When, through the process of law, the common people lose their homes, they will become more docile and more easily governed through the strong arm of government applied by a central power of wealth under leading financiers. These truths are well known among our principal men who are now engaged in forming an imperialism to govern the world. By dividing the voter through the political party system, we can get them to expend their energies in fighting for questions of no importance. It is thus by discreet action we can secure for ourselves that which has been so well planned and so successfully accomplished.”- President American Bankers Association, 1924

"I think it is wonderful that Eric holder is making sure that Mexicans' second amendment rights are preserved!" - Bobby Florenz

“My father was a hardcore conservative and a straight line Republican voter before he died. Now he votes Democrat.” (-Unknown)

Today, President Obama is calling for the same with the Buffett Rule.' Obama is under the mistaken impression that America's symbol is the bald ego." --The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto

‘In years to come there is going to be information that will come out that Obama was not the man who made the call. He can say he did and the people who really know what happened are inside the Pentagon, are in the military and the military isn’t allowed to speak out against the commander- in-chief so his secret is safe.’—Chris Kyle, former SEAL sniper

Remember just a few years ago when...

...the official unemployed was at 8.4 million instead of 12.4 million?

...the U.S. debt was at 9.5 trillion instead of 15.5 trillion?

...gas was $1.89 a gallon?

...the U.S. was friends with Isreal?

...food Stamp Recipients was at 29 million instead of 46 million?

...U.S. Astronauts didn't have to travel with Russians to go into space?

...our country's credit rating was a Triple AAA rating?

"Apparently, I'm supposed to be more angry about what Mitt Romney does with his money than what Barack Obama does with mine."- David Burge

Rep. Randy Neugebauer put the burden into perspective: “It will take over 24 million man hours to comply with Dodd-Frank rules per year. It took only 20 million to build the Panama Canal.”

"Sixty-one percent of debt issued by the Treasury is bought by the Federal Reserve -- which is to say the left hand of the U.S. Government is lending money to the right hand of the US Government. ... Nonetheless, in a land where every mewling babe in the American nursery is born with a debt burden of just under $200,000, the president brags that only his party is 'compassionate' to have no plan whatsoever even to attempt to do anything about this, no way, no how, not now, not ever." --columnist Mark Steyn

Isn't it amazing how every facet of Sergeant Bales life, high school, college, employment, why he left his employment, his brother’s employment, his wife’s employment, real estate holdings, a missed house payment , a missed promotion etc., is exposed within a week and the same fact finders can't find comparable info on the most powerful man in the world in three plus years ?

"We do not have a single document that proves Mr. Obama's birth in Hawaii or anywhere in the United States for that matter. The document is fake, the representation is fake.—Mike Zullo, Arpaio Posse Chief Investigator

" If they (SCOTUS destroy the Constitution, they will have destroyed that which created their positions." - Stewart Rhodes.

"We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the Courts, NOT to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution." -- Abraham Lincoln

"Quick, name something that government does better than the private sector that doesn't involve detention, killing, or eliminating freedom." ----Bobby Florentz

"Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves."---- Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) 40th US President“The election of President Obama by the presidential electors, confirmed by Congress, makes the documents and testimony sought by plaintiff irrelevant,” Obama’s lawyer Jablonski said.

“The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.”--Author Tom Clancy

But if trouble must come, let it come in my time, so thatmy children can live in peace. "

- Thomas Paine.

"Look, the Taliban, per se, is not our enemy.”

- VP Joe BidenDecember 2011

"The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and for people, equally in war and peace, and it covers with its shield of protection all classes of men, at all times and under all circumstances. No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of men that any of its great provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government."

– Ex Parte Milligan (1866)

Permit me to hint whether it would not be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of foreigners into the administration of our national government ; and to declare expressly that the command in chief of the American army shall not be given to, nor devolve on any but a natural born citizen.
I remain, dear sir,
Your faithful friend and servant,

John Jay.

Calling Ron Paul "out of the mainstream" is a double-edged sword, because it also means he can’t possibly be responsible for the condition of the country today.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->- - <!--[endif]-->Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

A guy named Reggie Love leaving the White House to get a degree at the Wharton School of Business. I guess he realized you can't learn anything about economics in the Obama White House.

- Jay Leno

Laws and regulations which violate the Constitution are not obligatory upon any free man.

(believed to be from George Washington.)

“We’re at that awkward stage where it’s too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards.”

- Claire Wolf

Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, the chairman of the National Transitional Council and de fact president, had already declared that Libyan laws in future would have Sharia, the Islamic code, as its "basic source".

-The Telegraph (good job Barack!)

Those who make peaceful change impossible, make violent change inevitable -Robert F. Kennedy

"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." -- Albert Einstein

The four boxes of LIBERTY:1. soap2. ballot3. jury4. ammo.....in that order!

"The actual need for a service, its relevance and value is always subordinate to the bureaucracy. This is the difference from the private sector: you go into a shop, and the sales assistant asks, 'Can I be of assistance to you, sir?' You go into a government agency: 'Get to the back of the queue and wait until you are called!”'

- Alistair Mcleod

"Only Malcolm X’s autobiography seemed to offer something different. His repeated acts of self-creation spoke to me. The blunt poetry of his words. His unadorned insistence on respect. He promised a new and uncompromising order, martial in its discipline."

– Barack Hussein Obama

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

-Oscar Wilde

“Anyone with an Obama 2012 Bumper Sticker is a Threat to the Gene Pool”

- Congressman Allen West

“The Only People Who Don’t Want to Disclose the Truth are Those with Something to Hide."

- Barack Hussein Obama Soetoro

"If it takes a village to raise your kid, you’re in the wrong country."

- Seen by Tim Clack II

"The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."

-Barack Hussein Obama Soetoro Soebarkah Bounel

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum. "

- Noam Chomsky

"Judge me by the people with whom I surround myself." -

- Barack Hussein Obama Soetoro (we are, Barry)

"…whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force…"